I close my eyes, slow my breath; my heart drums steadily.
And then, I feel a... shift in energy. From bright to grim.
The room grows colder. The air thickens. Shadows lengthen. The walls creak. There’s atap, tap, tapat my window, like something is asking for permission to enter my bedroom, yet doesn’t wait for an answer.
From nowhere, I hear a whisper:“Mine…”
My fingers twitch under the blanket.
The closet door creaks open on its own.
Something slinks forward from the area of my window, a living shadow cloaked in smoke and amorphous edges. Then, it coalesces and rises up: tall and angular, with wings like splintered storm shutters, and a grin too wide for its face. Its eyes glow faintly red, just like in the drawing. I see a mouthful of white, sharp teeth, glowing in the darkness. It is the stuff of nightmares.
It steps up beside my bed, looming over me, and sniffs the air.
“Loose a tooth, did we, child?”it purrs.
I hold my breath.
The creature reaches beneath my pillow with long, twisted fingers. And just as they close around the decoy tooth...
BOOM!
Light explodes from every corner of the room. The lava lamp bursts with molten gold, the vent blasts fairy dust, and the bookshelf erupts in brilliant white fire. The creature stumbles back, shrieking.
The fairy sisters emerge... glowing, furious.
Tinkerbell hurls a bolt of nuclear dust into the shadow’s chest. Sweet Root chants in a language I barely understand, binding the creature’s arms in floss-like tendrils. Queen Maple lifts her staff and summons a beam of moonlight so bright it cuts the room in half.
The dark cousin screams.
“You moths!”it howls.
“You desecrated her throne,” Queen Maple snaps. “You stole her post, corrupted her work.”
“You turned dreams to rot,” hisses Sweet Root.
“And worst of all,” Tink says, striking him again with her glittering power, “you messed with our little girls.”
“Well,I’mnot so little,” I mutter, flinging the blanket aside and blasting the creature with a pulse of kinetic energy. He smashes into my closet door, breaking through it.
“Time to go!” Queen Maple cries out.
She raises her staff one last time, and all three sisters, and me, combine our light and magic into a single point. It pierces the dark fairy’s chest, shattering the illusion of power.
The shadow writhes.
Then disappears... sucked into a black spiral that folds in on itself and vanishes like a popped soap bubble.
Silence.
My room, of course, is wrecked. Scorch marks on the ceiling. My comforter half-melted.
Tinkerbell, panting, flops onto my pillow like she’s had a long night out.
Sweet Root drops gently to my desk and exhales, fanning her face with her little hand.
Queen Maple lands on my shoulder, her voice soft now. “It’s done.”
